


If You'd Accept Surrender

by Black_Betty



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Charles Is a Darling, Erik has a lot of feelings, First Time, M/M, Miscommunication, Prom, charles/shaw kind of, not really - Freeform, sebastian shaw being a dick, silly boys having FEELINGS, sort of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:13:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Betty/pseuds/Black_Betty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Prom and Sebastian Shaw thinks he's finally getting what he's always wanted...</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You'd Accept Surrender

**Author's Note:**

> Written in an insomniac haze on tumblr at 4am. I have a feeling there might be more drabbles in this universe, so I thought I'd archive this here, just in case :D
> 
> If you want to come and play with me, ie. witness my slow-crumbling, sleep deprived brain being weird on the internet, I'm here on the tumblr: black--betty.tumblr.com (JOIN USSSSSSSS)
> 
> Title stolen from the Foo Fighters "Walking After You"

 

“I’m going to fuck Charles Xavier tonight.”

The words are said casually, with the noticeable slur of someone who is blithely intoxicated and wearing it like a badge of honour. Charles’ name, as always, sparks an ingrained Pavlovian response in Erik, but when he looks over at the source of the voice, he tries to make it subtle.

The way Angel snorts and raises her eyebrows at him, he figures he doesn’t really succeed.

Sebastian Shaw is lounging on a couch on the far side of the room, his shirt unbuttoned, a bottle of Wisers dangling from his fingers. He smirks at Emma Frost who lowers her cigarette to his mouth, smiling her white plastic smile at him as he takes a long drag.

“So you say,” she drawls, “but then, you say that every weekend.”

Shaw heaves a sigh, as though he’s been dealt a great burden just trading words with mere mortals,

“Oh Emma, do you really have such little faith in me?” He takes a great swallow of whiskey and then grins, viciously, and slowly sits up, pressing close to Emma who merely raises one perfect eyebrow and exhales cigarette smoke into his face. “Care to make a wager?”

She purses her lips, and asks, voice dripping with skepticism,

“Are you really that confident? How is this time any different than all of the other times you tried to get him into bed?” Erik is aware that everyone in the room is listening now, conversation hushed, though music still pumps loudly through speakers mounted high on the wall. Erik wants to tear them down so that he doesn’t miss a single word, a single  _inflection_  of Shaw’s answer.

Shaw hums, low and pleased, like a sleek cat, and Erik can’t stand him, and can’t help waiting with breathless anticipation for the words to come out of his mouth. Sebastian, knowing everyone is listening and manipulating the room with complete and absolute control, finally says,

“Because this time, he asked me to.”

There is a pause, and then Emma laughs, the sound of it reverberating through Erik’s brain. He’s barely had anything to drink tonight, but he feels like he’s going to be sick, the alcohol sitting in the pit of his stomach like rotted fruit, like a tumor.

The door slides open and Hank McCoy is standing there, exasperated and frantic,

“You guys! I told you no smoking in the house! My mom is going to kill me…”

The room laughs at his expense, Shaw and Frost cutting him down with their barbed words and holding court like the malicious Prom King and Queen that they are, lighting more cigarettes on principle. Erik only hears them as echoes coming from a great distance.

He’s moving before he’s even aware of it, pushing past people crowding the hallway around the bathroom, dancing ridiculously to bad music in the living room, sprawled out over the stairs. His internal compass his leading him on, pointed true north as always.

He finds Charles in the kitchen, tipsy and leaning into Moira’s shoulder, burying his face in the silk material of her dress and laughing as she waves her hands, ranting with the intense passion of the truly drunk. Charles’ bow tie is undone and looped loosely around his neck, his collar unbuttoned and gaping open, his hair falling out of its perfect style and curling over his forehead.

He’s beautiful and drunk and ridiculous, and all Erik can think about is losing him. Not to Oxford, or Columbia, not to books and miles of ocean, but to Sebastian Shaw, Sebastian Shaw who is everything Charles is not, and therefore everything Erik hates, and he can’t. He can’t.

Charles notices him standing there and straightens out of Moira’s embrace, blinking blearily at him. He smiles, devastatingly.

“Erik! Moira was just telling me—“

“Don’t have sex with Sebastian Shaw.”

He blurts it out, time and motion screeching to a halt, and Erik thinks he’s going to be sick again. He feels like everyone is watching them, but really the only people who have noticed his outburst are Charles and Moira, who are both gaping at him. Charles’ mouth moves silently for a few moments as though he’s trying to say something, but can’t vocalize the words. Finally he says,

“Pardon?”

Erik can feel his face erupting, a hot flush running over his cheeks and down his neck, and his secondhand tux suddenly feels stifling.

“Not that-” he tries, “not that you can’t have sex with whoever you want. Just. Not him. Please Charles.”

Charles stares at him for a second longer and then looks at Moira who looks back at him, equally dumbfounded. The room spins and his vision goes black along his periphery, tunneling down to Charles who looks confused and embarrassed, but not for himself, for Erik. He can’t stand that, he can’t stand Charles ever being ashamed of him, or pitying him.

He doesn’t know what he was thinking. He has no claim over Charles, no say in who Charles fucks, as much as he wants it to be him. As much as he’s wanted it since he met Charles in junior year, Charles fresh from England, worming his way into Erik’s life until he didn’t know what life was like before him, before Charles’ laugh over the lunch table and his stupid, perfectly spelled text messages and the way he can’t stay awake through a movie to save his life and his head always ends up on Erik’s shoulder.

He realizes he’s outside when he feels the water on his face. He tries to breathe, bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees, tries to stop himself from throwing up.

It’s quiet. The backyard is empty because of the rain, hedged in by tall trees that lead out into a ravine and it’s quiet, the sound of the party muted. He strides away from the house, leaving the lights behind and allows the shadows in the corners of the yard to swallow him up. He stands and lets the rain soak into the shoulders of his jacket, pushes his wet hair off his forehead. Feels frustrated and so, so sad and like an awful cliché. Hates himself.

There’s a snap and crack, someone stepping on a tree branch and he knows who it is before he looks.

“Erik…?” Charles voice is tentative and unsure.

Shit. He scrapes his hands over his face and looks over at Charles. He’s only in his white tuxedo shirt, soaked through from the rain, and his lips are so dark they look blue, and Erik wants him. Erik always wants him, but something about the night, fucking Prom with its fairy lights and slow music and now with the alcohol and the rain, he wants Charles with such visceral longing he feels like he’s imploding. Like there is a black hole within his chest compressing his organs internally, a wrenching wild howling thing, and he wants Charles to just go away before Erik bursts and incinerates them both.

 “Charles, just go. I’m sorry, okay? You can fuck whoever you want.”

He chances a look at Charles, and winces when his expression is shocked, like he’s been slapped. His face shifts from shock to something harder, something rigid. There’s a vein of iron running through Charles and Erik can see it now, straightening his spine, sparking through his eyes like grey flint.

“You’re right Erik, I  _can_  fuck whoever I want. And it’s none of your business.” There’s a glint of water in his eyes, tightness to his mouth that belies how hurt he is though he’s trying to hide it and Jesus Christ, Erik is such a fucking asshole. He swallows hard and says, defeated and ashamed,

“Right. You’re right.” There is a long pause as though Charles is waiting for something else, but Erik can only look at him standing in the rain and think about how he’s just ruined everything. Finally Charles nods and turns on his heel.

He gets about five paces from Erik, just inside the spill of light from the house before he turns again, righteous and indignant, fury radiating from him, illuminated by the porch lights.

“You know what? Fuck you Erik.  _Fuck. You_.” His hands are clenched into fists at his sides. “You can’t string me along, and then get mad when I decide to have sex with someone else. It isn’t fair.” His voice wavers on the last word and he visibly reigns himself in.

Erik, confused and hurt, defaults to his natural setting, which is antagonism,

“’Stringing you along’? When was that? One word from you and I would have done  _anything_ , Charles. How can you not know that? How fucking blind to you have to be?”

Charles stares at him, surprise painted across his features, but everything in Erik is pouring out of him now, years of pent up longing and frustration, and Charles being so close but never close enough to touch.

“And then Sebastian fucking Shaw comes along and after all this time, after everything, that’s who you pick? Him? Why would you do that?”

Charles is shaking, his face rigid and upset and he spits out,

“I hate you. I hate you so much sometimes.”

And then he’s launching himself at Erik, his arms around Erik’s neck, and Erik braces himself for a blow, always ready for a fight, but he should have known that isn’t Charles’ style. Charles who is the peacekeeper, who is kindness and affection and frustrating friendship and turning the other cheek. Charles who attacks not with his fists, but with his entire body, his mouth colliding into Erik’s with vicious force, biting down hard enough to tear skin and licking inside and devouring all the air left in Erik’s lungs until he can’t breathe.

It’s not how he ever imagined their first kiss, but he’ll take it. He wraps his arms around Charles’ body and squeezes him close and gives back as good as he’s getting, finally able to taste Charles, to feel the slide of that gorgeous mouth. They’re both soaked and shivering, but there is a heat spreading where their bodies are connected and Erik feels like he’s on fire, like if he just presses a bit harder he can melt them into one body. He wants everything Charles is willing to give him, even if it’s just this one, brutal, bloody, beautiful kiss.

Charles rips his mouth away and thumps his forehead against Erik’s once, twice.

“You drive me crazy,” he pants against Erik’s lips and Erik kisses him firmly on the mouth, and then again on his cheek, pulling Charles closer until they’re hugging each other tight, Charles’ face tucked into the side of his throat.

“Do you really hate me?” Erik whispers in his ear, and Charles laughs and squeezes him tighter still.

“Maybe,” he sighs and Erik shivers as he breath dusts across his throat, “I should, but no. Not really, no.”

Erik shuts his eyes, and for the first time in what feels like forever, breathes in and out cleanly.

“Good,” he whispers. “Good.”

 

 


End file.
